I
had the very good fortune in 1990 to visit the legendary Mel Allen at
his home
in Greenwich, Connecticut. I was there to collect memorabilia for the
“Stars of
David: Jews in Sports” exhibit that I was the curator and executive
producer
for at the Klutznik Museum in Washington, D.C.

My
wife Myrna came along with me. Mel had his sister Esther
at the ready. I had driven out from Long Island in my Toyota Celica.
The
thinking was that I would spend a few hours, collect whatever Mel Allen
offered
and go back home. It would up as a virtually an all-day affair. My car
was too
small and the time was all too brief.

I
was a so impressed with the warmth and the kindness and
intelligence of Mel Allen. His hospitality and that of his sister -food
and
beverages – was a kindly gesture to strangers in their midst. Growing
up in
Brooklyn, his was the “voice” I had listened to those long ago summer
days and
nights that so splendidly spun the tales of New York Yankee baseball.
It was
the pleasing southern voice that got me interested in writing about
sports,
especially baseball, especially the Yankees.

At the top of his game as a
broadcaster, Mel Allen received in excess of a thousand letters a week.The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he born
in Johns, Alabama, near Birmingham on Feb. 14, 1913. He enrolled at the
University of Alabama at age 15, went on to earn degrees in political
science
and law and passed the bar.

And
he joked “I took a class with the great football coach Bear Bryant and
earned
all A’s. I was absent all the time.”

Remaining close
to home working as a
speech instructor, covering football for a radio station in Birmingham,
in
1936, Allen went to New York City with friends for a Christmas time
break and
on impulse stopped at CBS for an audition. By 1939, he was announcing
home
games for the network of the New York Giants and New York Yankees. By
1940, he
held forth as the main voice on radio, then TV for the Yankees. His
incredible
time in the Yankee booth started in the sad days of the end of Lou
Gehrig and
ended in the final sad days the Yankee Empire of the 1960s. If you were
a fan
of the Yankees, chances were you loved him. Chance are that if you were
anti-Yankee, you were anti-Allen.

EDDIE
LOPAT: He was accused of being prejudiced for the Yankees. One year we
won
thirty-nine games in the seventh, eighth and ninth. He had to get riled
up.

JERRY COLEMAN: I
worked with Mel Allen
was the personification of the great broadcast voice. He was
magnificent in
what he did and how he did it. And he could talk forever.

The
articulate and enthusiastic Mel Allen brought the game to millions in a
cultivated, resonant voice. He began broadcasts with "Hello, everybody,
this is Mel Allen!" He created nick-names: "Joltin' Joe"
DiMaggio, "Scooter" for Phil Rizzuto, "Old Reliable" for
Tommy Henrich,

Allen’s
signature phrase "How about that!" originated in 1949, when Joe
DiMaggio slammed three home runs in three games coming back from a
severe heel
injury. Each DiMaggio home run call was punctuated by Allen with "How
about that!" "Going Going, Gone!" was Allen’s trademark call for
a homer and a description of a four bagger as "Ballantine Blasts" and
"White Owl Wallops" was a nod to sponsors.

MONTE
IRVIN: Mel Allen had that
golden voice. We thought he used to root more than anybody. Red Barber
did less
rooting. Mel was strictly a homer, but he was a truly fine announcer.

Allen’s
resume
highlighted his announcing 20 World Series and 24 All-Star Games, being
there
for nearly every major Yankees event. Suddenly, strangely, when the
1964 season
ended, the great “Voice of the Yankees” was let go.

MEL ALLEN: They never even held a press
conference to announce my leaving. They left people to believe whatever
they
wanted -- and people believed the worst.

RED
BARBER: He gave the Yankees his
life and they broke his heart.

Pained,
angered, confused, Mel Allen moved into the shadows for a time,
disappeared
from public view and consciousness. He broadcast Cleveland Indians
games in
1968, called 40 Yankees' broadcasts annually for several years on
SportsChannel.
He had a long run from 1977 on as the voice of "This Week in
Baseball." He became the host of the MSG Network program "Yankees
Magazine" in 1986.

It was George Steinbrenner who is generally
credited with bringing him back into the Yankee family, hiring Allen to
do
games on cable TV and emcee special events at Yankee Stadium. "The
minute
I bought the Yankees,” Steinbrenner said, “I wanted to know where Mel
Allen was
and I immediately brought him back to the organization.”

PAUL DOHERTY: Mel’s return to the Yankees
organization actually occurred six years before George’s arrival in
January
1973. His first return to the Yankees was to call the Old Timers Day
Game on
the field at the Stadium in 1967.After
the return, Mel came back the Stadium to do the play by play on field
for most
all of the Old Timers Day games for next two decades. He also received
a nice
pat on the back from the Yankees brass when they had him call Mickey
Mantle
from the dugout on Mantle Day, June 9, 1969. So his exile from the
Yankees
didn’t last very long.

The
long broadcasting run of Mel Israel Allen came to an end on June 16,
1996. The
“Voice of the Yankees” was finally stilled. He passed away at his
Greenwich,
Connecticut home. The heart trouble that had afflicted him for several
years
was the cause of death. Fittingly, the 83-year old Mel Allen had just
finished
watching a Yankee game on television.

About Harvey Frommer:
One of
the most prolific and respected sports journalists and oral historians
in the
United States, author of the autobiographies of legends Nolan Ryan,
Tony
Dorsett, and Red Holzman, Dr. Harvey Frommer is an expert on the New
York
Yankees and has arguably written more books, articles and reviews on
the New
York Yankees than anyone. In 2010, he was honored by the
City of
New York to serve as historical consultant for the re-imagined old
Yankee
Stadium site, Heritage Field. A professor for more than two decades in
the MALS
program at Dartmouth College, Frommer was dubbed “Dartmouth’s Mr.
Baseball” by
their alumni magazine.